Happy birthday, Hannah!

PHOTO SUBMITTEDHannah Hunt of Stockport is in Chicago this week with her brother Phoenix and their father Travis Hunt and to celebrate her 12th birthday today on 12-12-12.

This year, 2012, holds significance to many people in various ways; it was a presidential election year in the U.S., the Mayan calendar predictions have been colorful and this will be the last time this century a date such as today’s can be written as a three-peat.

For Hannah Hunt and her family, this special day is being celebrated in a big way in a big city. Hannah is 12 years old today, on 12-12-12.

“We’re spending a week in Chicago,” she said by phone Monday, from a hotel in Chicago.

Her father, Travis Hunt and his fiancée Sasha Luse, both of Fairfield, and her younger brother Phoenix, boarded a train Sunday in Mount Pleasant.

“We spent most of the time in the observation car,” she said. “It was fun to ride the train and look out the windows.”

Plans for this special birthday began a year ago. Hannah, who lives in Stockport with her mother Alice Watson and attends school in Douds, got to choose some of the highlights to visit.

“I think I’m most looking forward to visiting the Shedd Aquarium,” she said. “It’s my first time in Chicago. It will be my first time to visit an aquarium.”

And her celebratory birthday dinner tonight — yes, she chose — will be sushi.

“Kind of ironic now that I think about it,” her father Travis said in an email Tuesday.

“We are quite excited to get this week-long party going,” he added.

Monday, the Hunts’ first full day in Chicago, was adventurous in a different way than planned.

“It’s kind of like camping out in the middle of Chicago,” Travis said by phone. “The hotel we’re staying at lost its power and water, and Phoenix has a fever.”

“It’s amazing, the deep-dish pizza and so much cheese. And we rode the L,” she said, ticking off another Chicagoan experience.

Hannah was suitably impressed debarking from the train in Chicago’s Union Station.

“Acrobats were performing there,” she said.

Tuesday’s email from Travis reported power and water had returned to the hotel, “though the water is quite orange, and they seem to be having trouble with the heating now, plus the TV is out.

“Hannah’s 10-year old brother woke up this morning without a fever. So we have overcome all our obstacles so far. We are ready to take on the city,” he wrote. “Today will be Phoenix’s pick of place to go [Museum of Science and Industry] as well as the restaurant on our way home.

“Tomorrow will be all Hannah!”

Other Chicago places on the week’s agenda include the Skydeck, Navy Pier, The Field Museum, Lego Land, “and whatever great food and adventure we can fit in,” said Travis.

The Skydeck has the all-glass ledge, built to extend 4.3 feet out and 103 floors up on the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower).

“We’ll be here until Saturday, and then take the train home,” said Travis. “This is the biggest adventure we’ve had so far, and it seems fitting; I mean how many people turn 12 on 12-12-12?”

If this 12-year-old face seems familiar, “Hannah and her brother Phoenix are two of the kids in the mural on the back of the civic center in town,” said Travis.